Dozens of homegrown cowboys and cowgirls lined the soft, thick dirt of Lakeside’s rodeo on Friday evening, April 28 for the beginning of three days and five performances decked in silver brimmed hats and sitting proudly on their wooden-stick horses. Yes, the children’s stick-horse race on the opening night of Lakeside’s 53 Annual Rodeo was not just an entertainment highlight, but a symbol of why the rodeo even exists.

This year’s stock of animal athletes brought a lot of excitement throughout the weekend with some fierce bulls that insisted on not allowing an 8-second ride, with some failing. This years broncing horses were the top of the crop, giving high scores to the athletes with their magnificent bucking abilities, seeming much more aggressive than in past years. With three days of tough competition and national ranking cowboys and cowgirls, this year’s rodeo was a stellar performance at each event. But even with the big purses attached, the meaning and history of the Lakeside Rodeo is all about the youth in the community.

Two generations ago, the parents and schoolteachers of El Capitan High School came together to find a way to build a football stadium for the school. They called themselves the El Capitan Stadium Association (ECSA) and its million dollar fundraising idea was a rodeo, said rodeo chairman Rich Hurst. Every bucking, kicking, roping part of the dusty story that followed is, as they say, history.

“They got granted this land after they were formed,” said Hurst, “So the ECSA was originally formed just to build the football field. Then they built the pool. Then they built a whole bunch of other things and they grew and grew and grew. But there’s only so much money you can put into a high school, so that’s when they broadened their scope and they started supporting the youth of Lakeside.”

Typically, the rodeo brings in more than $250,000 of revenue every year, which the ECSA then distributes to the community. Everything from school sports to the local boy scouts have found themselves benefiting from the generosity of this non-profit, run entirely by volunteers.

Hurst is himself a retired military man who has raised his children in Lakeside and has seen first hand the work of the ECSA in his community. He said this is his way of giving back.

“There’s not a paid member anywhere around,” he said. “It’s not for profit, we’re doing this for the kids.”

But it is important to establish longevity, said Hurst, so the rodeo grounds are gearing up for a little makeover.

“We’re in the process of making a lot of capital investments to improve all this,” he said of the rodeo grounds. “We’re on our fifty-third rodeo, I’m trying to set it up so I know we’re going to make it to the hundredth.”

Fifty-one percent of all earnings go to kids in the community, Hurst explained, and the rest is invested back into the rodeo. After the Bulls-Only Rodeo in July, the ECSA will begin the process of restoring bathrooms, ticket booth, storage facilities and penthouse will all be renovated to accommodate the needs of the rodeo.

The rodeo itself is quite a spectacle. With more than 100 participants hailing from all over the country, and even from Canada, Australia and England, the three-day affair is a dervish of excitement. Saturday’s evening show completely sold out with opening night being shy less than 100 tickets. Top riders stand to make thousands of dollars during rodeo season, said Hurst, and Lakeside is an important stop for many of them.

“One of the team ropers I was talking to today comes all the way from Canada,” he said. “He hits this circuit, he’ll haul butt to Clovis and will be there tomorrow, and the very next day he’ll be in Springville and compete there. So he’s got three chances at the money in one weekend. It’s very competitive.”

Miss Rodeo Lakeside coronation

A major highlight for the community is the crowning of the new Lakeside rodeo queens. This year, Sabrina Collett and Makenna Hyland were crowned Miss Lakeside Rodeo and Junior Miss Lakeside Rodeo Queens on Saturday afternoon prior to the 2:00 p.m. matinee performance. The week leading up to the coronation saw them in schools around the community-promoting rodeo as a sport to local youth and learning the ins and outs of promoting the sport professionally with interviews and television appearances.

“I’m really honored because this is something I’ve never done before, so just stepping outside of my comfort zone has been such a journey,” said 2017 Lakeside Rodeo Queen Collett, a liberal arts major at Mira Costa Community College. “I’ve been riding horses since I was 5 years old and to get as involved as I can has been my goal, to make it my life. So when I saw rodeo queening and how I would be more involved in giving back to the community and the Lakeside rodeo, I had to jump at the opportunity. It’s matured me as an individual and a citizen.”

Collett said she hopes to transfer to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, to study horse ranch management and veterinary medicine with the goal of one day becoming a rodeo vet.

Jr. Lakeside Rodeo Queen Makenna Hyland, a 14-year-old middle school student, said she is thrilled to represent this sport she loves, especially for an organization that has done so much for her personally.

“There are many exciting things we can do to promote our rodeo and Lakeside, but I think the most exciting thing is supporting the ECSA,” she said. “That’s really important to me because I’ve actually been a part of the community of Lakeside and they’ve helped us at school when we’ve needed costumes and things, so I’ve experienced that.”

The rodeo, now a time-honored piece of Lakeside tradition, continues to buck its way into the hearts and lives of the next generation as well as Lakeside’s loyal rodeo fans and rodeo-lovers from all over the world.